School without water for a week

FRUSTRATED parents of pupils at Edendale Technical High School said it was “highly unacceptable” that pupils were forced to remain at school, while it didn’t have water for a week. The school has had no water since last Monday due to the water shortage the drought has caused.

However, parents said their children should have been sent home if there was no water.

“My child could not go to the toilet for the entire day. She also had no water to drink and that affected her concentration,” said a concerned parent, who did not want to be named.

The parent claimed the teachers and school management behaved in an “uncaring” manner toward the children by forcing them to attend classes without water and ablution facilities.

“From what I understand, according to the law and basic human rights, the children should have been sent home after two hours without water,” said the parent.

However, school principal Fano Ngubane said he could not suspend classes due to examinations and the fact that he did not want the school pass rate to drop.

Ngubane said the responsibility fell on the parents to send their children with water­ bottles to school.

“The water situation at our school is quite difficult and I must admit the toilets are filthy. We use water from the life sciences pond to flush the toilets,” said Ngubane.

He said he notified the municipality and the Department of Education that the school did not have water for an entire week, however, he had not received any response.

“The municipality must play its role. They did not send water tanks to us. The department must also play their role and should have assisted us,” he said.

Msunduzi Municipality and the department failed to respond to questions at the time of going to press.

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